A ‘diminished’, ‘weak’, ‘humbled’ Modi takes centrestage at G7; PM’s epitaph-writers should take a long, deep breath

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In some cases, it could be even more. As the G7 Summit in Italy came to a close,  one image stood out among many. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seen taking the centre stage, flanked by world leaders in the ‘family photo’ at a summit where India was a special invitee.

That image alone, placing India at the heart of the G7 grouping, answered some questions that had been swirling ever since Modi returned for his third consecutive stint at power. What does BJP’s diminished mandate signify? Will Modi, who has been caricatured as a “strongman” in global media, become vulnerable at home to strong-arm tactics by coalition partners on whom his government essentially depends? What will a coalition government mean for India’s foreign policy?

Will Modi – who has enjoyed commanding majority in the Parliament for a decade – and his team continue to pursue the major strategic goals, or will national security and foreign affairs fall prey to partisan politics? Will foreign policy see continuity, or will lesser number of seats in the Lower House affect India’s stability and eventually alter the country’s direction?

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Not all of these questions will or can be answered at once. But there are early indications. Modi has already chosen the same team that worked with him before India went to the polls. The Cabinet Committee on Security remains the same, with Amit Shah in charge of Home Affairs, Defence with Rajnath Singh, Finance portfolio with Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar trusted with the External Affairs ministry. The prime minister has even chosen to reappoint Ajit Doval as the national security advisor and PK Mishra as his principal secretary.

These appointments suggest continuity, confidence, and maybe even defiance. It indicates that the prime minister has taken the losses in stride. He wants to project an image of determination and appears to be in firm control of the levers of the coalition government. Manmohan Singh used to lament over “coalition compulsions” harming the pace of reform. Modi is sending a memo that he remains steadfast in his goal of building a ‘Viksit Bharat’ even if his party has come up short of the finishing line.

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Since the oathtaking ceremony on June 9 and subsequent visit to Italy, where India was the  toast of the grouping of developed nations, the message has been sent out that the prime minister remains his own man in Modi 3.0, and whatever may have caused BJP to lose votes and seats, the results are not a “personal rebuke” or a comment on Modi’s leadership.

This is of course a battle of narratives, and a key debate in the unfolding public discourse. A buoyed Opposition is taking relentless potshots at the BJP-led NDA government, calling it “illegal, unconstitutional”, and Modi a “one-third prime minister”. The silliness of these barbs by the Opposition, whose combined strength falls short of BJP’s number, is obvious but these high-octane rhetorical flourishes are aimed at testing the resilience of the NDA coalition and creating confusion in the minds of voters. Crucial state elections loom ahead.

Interestingly, in lockstep with the Opposition’s attack, foreign lobbies that have been accused of interfering in Indian domestic politics and general elections – a charge levelled by the  prime minister, the  external affairs minister and  borne out by data – have taken on the task of ‘certifying’ Indian democracy.

As Kanwal Sibal, the former Indian foreign secretary, writes in NDTV, “In the lead-up to the 2024 election, western media, think tanks, foundations, human rights organisations and academics launched what seemed an orchestrated campaign against the Modi government. This campaign has closely mirrored the accusations of the opposition parties and sundry civil society organisations in India about negative developments in the country.”

Post the elections, in sync with the Opposition’s narrative, there has been a deluge of commentary – especially from abroad – on how erosion in Modi’s power has restored the credibility of India’s democracy. The thrust of these pieces – be it in Foreign Affairs magazine or The Atlantic is that the robustness of Indian democracy rests on BJP’s defeat.

This Pavlovian reflex by foreign media, that typically chooses Indian or Indian-origin Modi baiters to sidestep charges of racism while pushing their narrative, has by now become quite predictable. Nobody expects balance or fairness from this lot. What is undeniable, however, is that western media still wields considerable discourse power, interpretive power and shapes public cognition. These narratives need to be engaged and countered, if only to expose the interventionist posture of US-led western media that sees itself as an actor in Indian domestic politics and seeks to shape electoral outcomes.

It is being said that Modi has become a “weakened and diminished figure”, has suffered “double personal blow” and “Indian democracy has stepped back from the brink”.

The humbug that goes by the name of analysis overlooks the fact that Modi is the first non-Congress prime minister to get three terms, the first since Nehru to get three consecutive stints at the helm, and the BJP, even in an election which according to The Atlantic “a victory that feels like defeat”, has expanded its footprint in the South, increasing vote share in Tamil Nadu, achieving a breakthrough in Kerala, and sweeping to power in both Lok Sabha and Assemble polls in Odisha, not to speak of a clean slate in Madhya Pradesh where voters were seemingly unconcerned with “growing Hindu nationalism and deepening authoritarianism” and gave BJP 29 out of 29 seats while Uttar Pradesh next door took up the noble task of stopping the BJP juggernaut.

According to the formidable Pratap Bhanu Mehta in Foreign Affairs, “the BJP’s humbling at the ballot box has saved Indian democracy.” It is incredibly arrogant, disingenuous and duplicitous to suggest that the mandates in 2014 and 2019 that had given BJP the absolute majority were not a true reflection of popular will and somehow were examples of “democratic backsliding” and “electoral autocracy.” Not a shred of evidence has been provided to back up these bogus insinuations. It is also an affront to the collective intelligence of the electorate who seem to have redeemed themselves in the eyes of foreign observers and the comprador elites by making the ‘right choice’ this time, because the results align with their ideological preference.

Going by this specious argument, who’s to tell foreign media and its cohort of opinion-makers that even a moderately competent dictator in a predominantly poor nation ‘where institutions are apparently weak’ would’ve ensured at the very least that elections don’t end up delivering adversarial results?

To Lydia Polgreen in New York Times, the results uphold India’s “glorious, messy tradition”. Perhaps the American commentators have gotten so used to the mess at home where half the population is at loggerheads with the other almost to the point of civil war that they wish such chaos on democracies around the world. None of these takes makes even a passing attempt at rationality or logic when the fact is that when almost all the major democracies in the world has seen incumbents losing power or suffer massive erosion in popularity, India stands as the only exception.

These dishonest assessments are as painstaking to read as chewing iron ball bearings and about as factually accurate as describing an elephant as a ‘large animal with a long nose’.

This brings me back to the extraordinary picture from G7 in Italy where the Indian prime minister was the cynosure. Wishcasting ideological projections as analyses is one thing, world leaders understand geopolitics better than commentators.

Regardless of the media-driven narrative that is being peddled, G7 Summit showed that the developed nations need India on their side – the fastest-growing major economy in the world – and they recognize the fact that under Modi, whose foreign policy has been a stellar achievement, India’s international stature has seen a marked rise. Modi has steered India through a world in flux, has resisted external pressures to keep the focus on national interest, all the while managing to secure energy at competitive prices to keep the wheels of Indian economy turning and ensuring fast growth amid expansive wars in twin theatres.

Modi’s stress on multialignment while developing personal rapport with a number of world leaders has ensured better policy space and ability to punch above weight. At a time when the G7 is in decline, it was instructive to watch Modi, boosted by a fresh mandate in the world’s largest democracy, being one of the most sought-after leaders. During his short visit, Modi managed to meet 14 world leaders including Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the summit.

India is the fifth-largest economy in the world and may soon overtake Japan to climb to the fourth spot behind US, China and Germany. Given the fact that Germany is struggling through one of the slowest-paces of growth in history with a meagre 0.2 per cent expansion forecast for 2024, India’s economy will be bigger than all the G7 nations bar the United States.

This hands India incredible leverage. Yet economy isn’t the only arena were India pulls its weight. During his speech at the summit’s ‘outreach session’, Modi called the results of India’s just concluded elections “a victory of democracy” and “a victory of the entire democratic world,” placing India as a natural counterbalance to China in alignment with the democratic ethos of the West.

Modi is also cognizant of the fact that G7 sees India as the voice of Global South and a bridge between the two halves. The developed countries are aware of their unpopularity in the zone of emerging economies, and that presents another point of leverage for India – a position that Modi has carefully nurtured and developed.

As German chancellor Olaf Scholz, sharing an image of animated conversation with Modi and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida on X (formerly Twitter), wrote: “The G7 is not an exclusive club. That is why we continued here in Apulia what we started in Elmau and spoke with many representatives of the global south. It must remain this way in the future.”

It isn’t surprising to note the prime minister mentioning that “the countries of the Global South are bearing the brunt of global uncertainties and tensions. India has considered it its responsibility to place the priorities and concerns of the countries of the Global South on the world stage”, pointing out that India has given “high priority to Africa in these efforts.”

As a consensus builder, a solver of global problems and as a leader of the emerging bloc of nations, Modi’s reputation remains intact, and he has the chance to build on his legacy over the next five years. When a “humbled”, “diminished” and “weak” Modi is courted by the leaders of the rich and powerful, those writing his epitaph should take a long, deep breath.

The author is Deputy Executive Editor, Firstpost. He tweets: @sreemoytalukdar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.